


Endless, Nameless

by Theyisms



Series: Son of a Preacher Man [12]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuDem - Freeform, AkuDemy, Alcohol, Axel/Demyx - Freeform, Catholic background, Closeted Character, Drinking & Talking, False Accusations, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Nirvana Reference, Religion, Trauma, mentions of BDSM, past bullying, sad boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 11:31:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20545451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyisms/pseuds/Theyisms
Summary: Axel talks, and Demyx listens.





	Endless, Nameless

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been official for a while but I feel the need to say it again: I love these boys so very much.

The door is already unlocked when he arrives, just like Axel said it would be. He lets himself in and gently closes the door behind him. Everything in the living room is off. He can’t hear or see anything except for the light streaming out of the kitchen. He slips out of his shoes and slowly makes his way toward the light.

Inside the kitchen, he finds Axel sitting at the table with an empty glass in his hand. A tall, half empty bottle of brown liquor sits in the middle of the table, and another empty glass sits a few inches away from it. He watches for a moment as Axel just stares into space. This picture looks sad, and his paranoid brain is already trying to convince him that it is his fault.

He holds back a sigh as he steps inside and takes a seat across from Axel. From this angle, he can see that Axel’s eyes are red and puffy. His chest tightens. “Are you okay?”

The faraway look on Axel’s face stays put as he grabs the bottle and pours himself what Demyx assumes is  _ another _ glass. The bottle thumps a little too hard on the table when he puts it down. “No. I haven’t been okay for a long time.” He drinks from his glass. “I haven’t had anyone to  _ talk _ to in a long time. That’s why I called you.”

Demyx doesn’t know whether to feel happy about Axel wanting to talk to him of all people, or sad because there’s something bothering him. He does know that he wants to be supportive. He wants to listen and help and be there for him.

The redhead pushes the bottle towards him, and Demyx grabs it. He’s not sure if he wants to drink just yet, but he pours himself a glass anyway.

“I want to be completely honest with someone for once in my life. It’s probably going to be really weird because I’ve never said any of this shit out loud before so don’t...laugh at me.”

“I would never,” Demyx assures him.

The corner of Axel’s mouth lifts upward in what almost looks like a smile, but it disappears as soon as it appears.

“Lea Tsuyoi is a person I wanted to leave in my past. He might not have been the most upstanding guy around, but he definitely did not deserve any of the shit that happened to him. He grew up in a religious home too. Probably not as strict as yours, but it was enough. On top of that, we were poor. If Lea wasn’t being made fun of for his “girly” name, he was being made fun of for his beat up shoes or the fact that he definitely wore that same outfit last week.”

Demyx frowns. “That’s mean. Then again, teenagers can be cruel sometimes.”

Axel snorted. “That was in second grade.”

The blond shook his head in disbelief. He had a hard time believing that little kids were natural bullies. They  _ had _ to learn that behavior from their parents or siblings.

“This happened up until fifth grade. By then, my parents knew what was happening to me and decided to move me to a private school in the sixth grade. It was one of those schools that you had to score really high on the entrance exam to get in. I took the test, got a crazy high score, and got in.” He pauses for a moment. “But they didn’t tell me it was a Catholic school.”

Demyx’s stomach turns. He’d heard so many bad things about Catholic school from former Catholics. Thankfully, his father had let him attend public school all his life.

“Things were fine at first. It wasn’t like the dramatic shit you see on TV where the girls wear tiny plaid skirts and nuns walk around smacking your hands with rulers and shit. It was just boring classes and attending mass. It wasn’t anything fancy either. The school was gross and falling apart. There was like...this specific area in the school we weren’t allowed to go in because there was a lot of mold, so we sometimes had certain classes in the cafegymatorium.”

“The  _ what? _ ”

The redhead laughed. “It’s this really big room in a school that they use as a cafeteria, a gym, and an auditorium.”

Demyx grimaced. “That sounds nasty. You had to eat in the same place you and a bunch of other boys  _ sweat  _ in?”

“Yup. That was our normal. After a month or so, I found out that, again, I was the poor kid. The school wasn’t filled with rich kids, but I was below the poverty line while everyone else was pretty much middle class. The bullying started again and this time I just had to deal with it. There was nowhere else for me to go, and all the authority figures kept telling me to talk to God about it. I started to question God and begged him to make my life better, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.”

Demyx absently brings the glass up to his lips and takes a sip. The alcohol burns on the way down and he huffs as heat builds behind his eyes, mouth, and nose. He waves his hand rapidly as his eyes begin to water. “What kind of alcohol is this?!”

“Scotch,” Axel chuckles.

“I almost  _ died _ ,” Demyx complains as he slides the glass to the middle of the table.

Axel laughs a bit harder, taking the glass and downing its contents. Demyx watches in disgust as he casually sits it aside and returns to his own drink. “Next time I’ll get you something clear.”

“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t expecting to drink anyway. Finish your story.”

Axel nods. “What’s the last thing I said?”

“You questioned God.”

He hums and nods again. “The bullying kinda eased up a little when I met this kid named Isa. He understood what it was like to not have as much as the other kids and he kinda protected me, in a way. Nobody messed with me while he was around. And he had questions about God too. It felt good to know that I wasn’t alone in what I was thinking or  _ wrong  _ for simply having questions. We talked about it a lot in our free time and decided that we didn’t fully believe in what we were being taught. The school didn’t talk to us about sex at all, but we understood that it took a man and a woman to make a baby, so the whole  _ immaculate conception _ thing was just too much for us to wrap our heads around.”

Axel pours himself more Scotch. “I started to like him during the summer before our eighth grade year. So I told him, and he returned those feelings. We started going over to each other’s houses almost every day, talked shit about everybody in school, and said  _ I love you  _ way too fast,” he laughs. His smile slowly dims as he takes another sip.

“We had our first and last kiss at the park. Someone from school who already didn’t like us went and snitched to his parents, and his parents told  _ our _ parents. They both asked us what happened and I told the truth: I kissed my boyfriend. I didn’t care what my parents thought because I didn’t care about anything else but him at the time. Isa...told a different story. He told his parents that I forced him to kiss me. Of course his parents believed him—mine did too. They told my parents to keep me far away from him, and my parents gave me the biggest lecture about how homosexuality was a sin and that I shouldn’t be trying to “convert” other boys. The few games and hobbies that I did have were taken away and I was put on punishment for the entire summer. I was only allowed to leave my room to eat and do chores for three fucking months. The movie nights we used to have were cancelled and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere with them  _ ever _ . If we got invited somewhere, they went while I stayed home and cleaned the entire house top to bottom.”

“That’s awful,” Demyx mutters.

“It gets worse,” Axel says casually. “When school came around again, everyone had already heard rumors about what happened. Isa’s lie about me forcing him to kiss me had somehow snowballed into me forcing myself on him.” Demyx’s jaw drops. “No one wanted to be anywhere near me, and Isa refused to tell anyone the truth,  _ or  _ fucking talk to me. At thirteen years old I was being bullied for being poor, gay, and a violent sexual deviant. And suddenly all they could talk about at mass was sexual consent and how homosexuality is evil.”

“Did this Isa ever come and talk to you about it? Like, I hate to interrupt but he couldn’t have just let you go through that…”

“Yeah. Yeah he did…” Axel frowned. “He made sure absolutely no one was around when he told me that he still loved me, but he couldn’t tell anyone the truth. Said he didn’t expect it to get so out of control, but he  _ had _ to lie because his parents hated gay people and he didn’t want them to hate him. He started crying and begging me to understand, so I just told him it was okay. After that, we didn’t speak for the rest of the school year.”

“High school came around—yes,  _ also  _ Catholic school—and people did not forget. The rumors spread to high school, so I went in with an awful reputation. The people who didn’t hate me were afraid of me. I went through half the year without friends before Isa finally told the truth. He attempted suicide and wrote it down in his suicide note. He survived, but his parents were so pissed and embarrassed about what happened that they packed up and left town. 

“Everyone eventually found out that I was innocent, so they started coming up with other reasons to keep hating me. I was apparently rude, gay, disrespectful to authority, poor, any reason they could think of. Didn’t even have to be true. So the name Lea became associated with everything bad, and I started to panic whenever I heard my name. It got so bad that I had a mental breakdown in the tenth grade and my parents took me to see a therapist. Christian, of course. Gotta uphold those holy values or whatever.”

Demyx smirks. “I was also sent to a Christian therapist.”

“Sad boy solidarity,” Axel grins as he lifts his glass. Demyx laughs as he grabs his abandoned one and clinks them together.

“I’m so sorry, continue.”

“It’s fine,” Axel chuckles. “The therapist didn’t help much, and by junior year I was thinking some really dark shit. I had no friends, no money, and my parents still seemed to hold something against me. So I struggled with my anxiety and my sexuality alone. And I did some really stupid shit to feel better and I shouldn’t...I  _ really  _ shouldn’t have done any of that.”

He starts to fidget. “Then one day I met this new chick in church, who will remain nameless. She was in college and everyone seemed to love her. She was nice and respectful and got along with pretty much everyone. She took to me, and we became “friends.” My parents approved of her and thought she would be a really good influence on me, so they let me spend time with her. I was terrified to get close to her at first, but she grew on me. She proved to me that I could trust her and never judged me. She helped me recreate myself.  _ Axel _ wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for her.”

Demyx notices Axel’s eyes start to mist over. “But she also...broke me. I was just about to turn 17 when she introduced me to BDSM, and on my 18th birthday, she…” He inhales deeply. “I wasn’t ready for a lot of the things she introduced me to. This woman made me her personal  _ bitch _ and she made sure that I knew it. That put me in a bad headspace. She used a lot of my insecurities against me and tried to pass it off as “play” but that’s not what it was. The wildest part about it was that she made me think I was in love with her. I was manipulated into thinking that I had feelings for someone who was physically and mentally ripping me apart. If God is real, where the hell was he when I was going through all of that?”

Axel’s hands start to shake, and Demyx reaches over the table to grab his hands. “I can’t answer that because I have my own questions about God. But that’s all in the past. You’re okay now.”

“I’m not,” he laughs bitterly. “I’m not okay because it’s still affecting me. When I’m with you, I  _ almost  _ feel fine, but then I get reminded of the two people who royally fucked me over and I wind up doing something to hurt your feelings and you don’t deserve that.”

“Axel—”

“You go through enough as it is; you don’t need any extra baggage.”

“Axel, you’re  _ not  _ baggage—”

“I’m sure as hell not a walk in the park, Demyx. I have serious issues that I haven’t worked through and I don’t want to take any of that shit out on you.”

“Okay, but that’s literally what I’m  _ here _ for,” Demyx presses, jamming his index finger against the table top to emphasize his point. “You’re supposed to take it out on me. We said we would be each other’s stress relief.”

Axel huffs. “How does that work if I’m the one causing you stress?”

“You’re not. I’m just a fucking crybaby. I get my feelings hurt easily but that is not your fault. You’re not hurting me, Axel. That’s a me thing. I have issues too. I jus—I’m…!” Demyx swallows hard as he curls his hands into fists. “I never do anything right! I’m a fuck up in every sense of the word. I can’t control my emotions sometimes, I say the wrong things, I act before I think and I make really stupid impulsive decisions because sometimes I get overwhelmed and don’t care about anything else except what makes me feel good in the moment. That’s how this thing between us _ started _ . But you have quickly become one of the best things in my life and I’m soooo grateful for it. I’m glad I met you, and that we’re doing this...casual whatever. Issues or not, I’m glad you’re in my life. Please don’t be sad.”

A tear finally slides down Axel’s cheek as he circles one of Demyx’s hands with his own and squeezes. “You’re so cute,” he laughs softly as more tears fall. “God…”

Demyx smiles. “I don’t know what I did, but did any of that help you feel better?”

“Ah…” He sniffs as he wipes the moisture from his cheeks with the heel of his palm. “It’s going to be a while before I feel better. I think I had too much to drink.”

“You need me to stay with you?”

“Won’t you get in trouble with your dad?”

Demyx sneers. “Fuck my dad.”

“I don’t think I’m his type, actually.”

The two of them snicker, and Axel sniffs again. “How messed up do you have to be to  _ sort of _ open up about your trauma and then immediately make jokes?”

“Whatever gets you through,” Demyx tells him. “I’m really sorry all of that happened to you. Maybe one day you’ll be able to trust me with the full story and we can work through it together.”

Axel sighs. “Don’t give me hope, Dem. It always screws me over in the end.”

Demyx looks him in the eye, and he has a feeling that sentence has more meaning to it. For a moment, he wonders…

“Hope isn’t so bad,” he tries to smile.

“So you’ll stay?”

The blond nods.

Axel averts his gaze as he lifts Demyx’s hand with both of his and presses his lips to the knuckles. His eyes begin to water again, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Demyx is torn between rushing around the table to hug him and staying put. He has no idea what’s going on in Axel’s head right now. Maybe he just needs to sit here with him for a while.


End file.
